Like You
by Cola Karmon
Summary: A promise at a gravestone.  Warnings for death of a major character, implied slash romance and plenty of angst.  Inspired by Evanescence's 'Like You' from The Open Door.


AN: This oneshot here is short and god awful because I wrote it on a whim at two in the morning without much editing. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. I suggest listening to the song at the same time if you'd like to get the full effect. Or if you're a masochist...

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><p><em>You're not alone.<br>No matter what they told you, you're not alone.  
>I'll be right beside you forevermore.<em>

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><p>Everyone left. There were a few who stayed behind; they tried to convince him to leave too, but he just gave them a smile—one they knew was false and consoled no one—and insisted they go ahead. He plied them with promises to be home before the sun set—which they knew were false and convinced no one—so they left. And then he was there alone. Alone with him.<p>

He stared for a long time at the earth, the soft and warm soil that was piled gently up, the stems of a dozen or so white roses speckling the almost black pillow of dirt. He frowned. It felt wrong to call it dirt. Dirt implied filth. And there was no way anything filthy would be near that man. That boy….

When the word tumbled through his mind, like a glass rolling off a table with a jolt, he sucked in a breath. The hitch did nothing to dampen the sudden shatter that rocked though his ribs. It twisted in his stomach and then branched out, tightening around his bones until he felt them, like chains, and they dragged him to his knees.

A black and white world filled his eyes. He reeled a bit, shadows tugging at his peripheral and suddenly he inhaled. Breathing…. Right, that was supposed to happen. A stiff and jerking hand lifted—his own—and smoothed cold fingertips along the name carved in the pale marble. He remembered to breathe again, right as the word 'boy' hiccoughed across his thoughts one more.

He couldn't really think of him as anything but the boy. The boy he once was, the boy who used to wander the stone hallways and press between the company of fellow classmates. The boy who was always opposite, his complement, a contrast of purpose and a rivaling of belief. An opponent. A lost cause? No, not at all. The end of the war brought so many wonderful things out of the mess that it had seemed to end in. Friendship. A second chance. A different beginning. Not a new one, just different.

The only sound that filled the air was the strangled inhale of sobbing. It echoed about the valley as newer memories came sliding back. They wheeled around him like a carousel, churning in their many pigments and voices, but all of them revolving about the same axis of emptiness. All recalled with anguish. A lingering reminder that he'd never have more.

He could see the boy's face so clearly. A glimmer of hope in eyes that only dared. A lazy contentedness once comfortable with shared time. A boil of frustration that masked something special. That terror, like a sweet rare wine that was only sampled once before it yielded into something wonderful. Then there was fire, like no other. And then a silver coil of gentleness, like the curve of the moon in the blackness, just a soft welcome light in a dark world with only pinpricking stars. His eyes were the moon.

He didn't notice that he had fallen until he tasted dirt in his mouth the next time he drew breath to scream.

They were gone. He clenched his hands and thorns pierced his palms, grime muddying the cuts.

He'd never have them again. Not even the wind was there to mask his wailing.

Alone. Six feet below, in a hawthorn casket, was his boy. The boy he loved. And in his slow, dragging efforts to pull himself from the soft earth that marked the span his boy lay, he began to murmur, the chant pouring with every teardrop.

"I'll never leave you," he promised. His hands gripped the headstone like he used to grip his boy's shoulders when telling him something important. He smeared dirt over the polished, snowy marble. "I'll never leave you. There's room inside for the both of us. I'll never leave you."

So even though everyone else left, and he too—once his voice turned to dust in his throat and the sun rose again—pulled himself from that place, Harry left his soul there as an eternal bouquet on the headstone of his boy. His lonely, lovely boy who had eyes like the moon in a sea of piercing stars.

_-Finite-_


End file.
